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Using Frontpage

Once you've opened Frontpage choose File > Open Site from the top menu. Browse to the location where you extracted your Ecommerce Template to. You may want to make a back up of the original before making any changes.

There are some issues to bear in mind when using Frontpage and PHP so we've split this section into 2 parts:

ASP Version

You can now get to work on making the design changes - all the ASP Frontpage templates use Frontage include pages. These can be found in the includes folder and are used for making global changes to elements such as the header, footer, menu and news. Changes made on these pages will update all the pages where the include exists. The includes folder and files don't need to be uploaded to the server, only the main store files themselves

Now that you can see how the general design changes can be made, this is how you would proceed.

1. Get your general design done locally, more or less the look you need for the site - don't worry about the products and links for the moment. The Ecommerce Templates come with .png files so changing colors, titles and company name etc. is simple - Adobe have a 30 day free trial available for Fireworks if you don't already have the program.
2. There's nothing you need to add to the pages in the vsadmin folder for the time being as you'll be the only one using those pages for adding product information, shipping stuff, categories, credit card processors etc once the site is on the server.
3. Now you can publish your site via Frontpage or through an FTP program to your Windows enabled server.
4. This is where the fun starts - you'll probably want to get some categories and products on your store so you'll have to log into the admin section - chances are that first of all you'll need to change the path to your database in the file vsadmin/db_conn_open.asp - here's a quick way of checking to get the path correct for the ecommerce plus templates. Once you've done that publish the site again.
5. Now that's done log into your online admin control panel at www.yourdomain.com/vsadmin/login.asp - and the first thing to do is change the default username and password so no-one else can get in.
6. Take a look around the various options, the ecommerce templates come with some sample products, categories and descriptions and although they will need to be deleted, they should give you a good idea of how the system works.
7. That's about it, you can now start setting up your store - check the instructions for the ecommerce plus templates and if you run into difficulties, take a look through the support forum.

PHP Version

There are a couple of issues with the FrontPage version when using PHP only. Frontpage extensions do not work with pages with the .php extension, so this means that FrontPage Includes do not work. We have found a neat way around these issues, but there are a couple of things to bear in mind.

First, for include pages, we have just used PHP includes. It's already set up for you, and you will find the included pages in the includes folder. Unlike FrontPage includes however, all links will be relative to the file that is doing the including. So, for this reason we recommend you use links relative to the site root if you want to use the same include files in folders and sub folders.

Examples of different ways to link pages are . . .

• This is a relative link: mypage.php
• This is a link relative to the site root: /mypage.php
• This is an absolute link: http://www.mysite.com/mypage.php

If you are using a graphics based menu with rollover buttons, you will have to make up and over buttons for the navigation. (This does not apply to templates which use DHTML PopOut menus as navigation of course.) To change navigation, open the page which contains the navigation. (Normally includes/leftnavigation.htm.) You will see some lines of code such as . . .
addrollover('special.php','images/special.gif','images/specialov.gif');
To add buttons to the navigation, just add extra lines here, or edit the existing ones. The parameters are:

1. The link.
   This can be relative: mypage.php
   or relative to the site root: /mypage.php
   or absolute: http://www.mysite.com/mypage.php
2. The "normal" state of the image
3. The "mouseover" state of the image
   

The same rules apply about relative links as for the FrontPage Includes however.

If Frontpage doesn't recognize the .PHP pages, you'll need to configure it like this:

1. In Frontpage go to Tools>Options>Configure Editors
2. Choose "Add"
3. Put PHP for file type
4. Put the same information as you have for htm, html etc. - this is usually
   Editor Name: FrontPage
   Command: frontpg.exe
5. Save
   

Now that has been explained the rest is pretty similar to the ASP version.

1. Get your general design done, more or less the look you need for the site - don't worry about the products and links for the moment. Publish to your sever regularly to see everything looks fine or work "live" on the server. The ecommerce templates come with .png files so changing colors, titles and company name etc. is simple - Adobe have a 30 day free trial available for Fireworks if you don't already have the program.
2. There's nothing you need to add to the pages in the vsadmin folder for the time being as you'll be the only one using those pages for adding product information, shipping stuff, categories, credit card processors etc once the site is on the server.
3. Now you can start on the admin side - you'll probably want to get some categories and products on your store so you'll have to log into the admin section - chances are that first of all you'll need to change the path to your database in the file vsadmin/db_conn_open.php - your host should be able to help you there if you run into problems.
4. Now that's done log into your online admin control panel at www.yourdomain.com/vsadmin/login.php - and the first thing to do is change the default username and password so no-one else can get in.
5. Take a look around the various options, the ecommerce templates come with some sample products, categories and descriptions and although they will need to be deleted, they should give you a good idea of how the system works.
6. That's about it, you can now start setting up your store - check the instructions for the ecommerce plus templates and if you run into difficulties, take a look through the support forum.